COLA recommends adding social and cultural analysis major, cutting race, indigeneity and migration major, LGBTQ minor in internal document – The Daily Texan

The College of Liberal Arts’ Department of Social and Cultural Analysis proposed eliminating the race, indigeneity and migration major and LGBTQ studies minor and creating a new interdisciplinary multi-track major, according to internal documents acquired by The Daily Texan on Monday. 

The professor, who provided these materials and requested to remain anonymous, wrote that the proposals were discussed by an executive committee made up of faculty in the department. The proposals come after COLA’s four ethnic and gender studies departments were consolidated into the new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis earlier this year. 

The document suggested that the University should retain American studies; African and African Diaspora studies; and Mexican American and Latina/o studies majors.

The University and the department chair, Danielle Clealand, did not respond to requests for comment.

The documents shared consist of two different versions of a proposal for a new multidisciplinary major titled “social and cultural analysis,” which will include six tracks composed of courses and taught by faculty from the consolidated departments.

The original proposal the faculty received on Aug. 14, titled the SCA Degree Program Proposal, did not discuss the elimination of LGBTQ studies. The second document, titled the DSCA Curriculum, was the final version sent to the Office of the Provost and included the elimination of the LGBTQ studies minor. The second document said that the race, indigeneity and migration and LGBTQ studies minors should be eliminated due to their similarity to other offerings.

“While the identity of the new department is being established, and until students begin to recognize what the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis consists in, academically, it is critical that DSCA continue to feature constituent majors that reflect the familiar academic specializations of the departments from which it was formed,” reads the DSCA curriculum document.

The degree program proposal outlined the major, which includes six track options: critical and comparative race & ethnicity, migration, American and urban studies, gender, sexuality and justice, indigeneity and teaching social and cultural analysis.  

According to the DSCA curriculum document, the degree will “prepare students to analyze, understand, and participate in an increasingly complex society and economy.”

The committee met for an emergency meeting on Aug. 10 and agreed to meet the Aug. 15 deadline the provost presented, “despite the unprecedented circumstances of the request, the fact that no such field exists, and that such a hurried process is unprecedented at UT or any peer institution,” according to the SCA Degree Program Proposal. It also said the faculty would need this academic year to finalize the plans and create new courses to serve as the basis for this upcoming major.

“While we have provided a shell of a degree program — one that we have not had sufficient time to deliberate about with the more than 80 colleagues who comprise SCA — we insist upon adequate time and process to fully develop and propose a degree program that is not haphazard, and that can exist alongside our existing degree programs which continue to serve the mission of educating Texas students,” reads the SCA Degree Program Proposal.